London Stock Exchange Group plc (LSEG) Q2 2026 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to LSEG's H1 results presentation. Thank you for joining us. As usual, I'm joined by Matt, our CFO, and Peregrine Riviere, our head of IR. I'll give you a few highlights of the first six months and then hand over to Matt to talk through the numbers in detail. After that, I'm going to spend some time talking specifically about our progress in DNA and our deep engagement with customers as they adapt to an AI world. And then, of course, we will be happy to take your questions. Thank you for joining us. The top line and margin improvement delivered 17% earnings per share growth, an exceptional growth of 37% in free cash flow per share. We made record returns to shareholders, around £2.6 billion across dividends and buybacks, and are back in the market as of today with our next buyback trawl. Thank you so much for joining us. This engagement demonstrates our deep institutional partnerships, the trust in our data and our engineering expertise. Demand for financial data and analytics is as strong as ever. In fact, segment spend has more than doubled in the last 17 years, while industry headcount has fallen by a quarter. The value of data has decoupled from the number of people using it. I'm going to talk up front about our markets businesses, because my progress update later will focus exclusively on AI and the DNA business. Remember that markets is 40% of LSEG revenue. All our venues have had an exceptional six months. Following a very strong Q1, we've seen solid follow through in Q2, comping a pretty extraordinary prior period in 2025 as well. These platforms are not just about volatility. Almost all of them have strong underlying growth drivers too. And we have invested in them over the years to expand their reach, access new asset cla...